Nova Scotia reports 22 more deaths from COVID-19, 77 new hospitalizations this week

HALIFAX — Nova Scotia’s top public health doctor reminded residents Thursday to keep their masks on despite a drop in confirmed COVID-19 cases.

Dr. Robert Strang says that though case numbers are dropping, hospitalizations and deaths from the disease remain high and people in the province still need to be on guard to protect themselves from the disease.

“We still have a lot of virus around,” Strang told reporters. “There are people and settings in our communities where people and individuals are at a much higher risk.”

COVID-19 claimed 22 more lives in the province during the week ending Monday, officials reported. 

People aged 70 and older are 95 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than those younger than 50, according to a news release from the provincial Health Department. Residents 70 and older are also 10 times more likely to be hospitalized due to COVID-19 than those between 18 and 49, the release said.

Strang would not say if his office has advised or would advise the government to reinstate mandatory masking in public places, saying any advice made from public health to government is “confidential.”

“We certainly continue to recommend … that people continue to wear masks in indoor places, whether they’re public places or workplaces, especially when there are situations where they can’t maintain that six feet or two metres of distance reliably,” he added.

Officials confirmed 3,415 new cases with PCR testing in the week ending Monday — a significant drop from the 5,436 cases reported for the previous week.

Meanwhile, 77 people were admitted to hospital because of the disease in that time period, which is down from 91 new hospitalizations reported the week before.

As of Thursday, there were 239 people in hospital across the province who had contracted COVID-19, according to numbers from Nova Scotia Health. The agency said 47 of those patients were admitted to hospital because of the disease, while the remaining 192 patients were admitted for something else but tested positive while they were there.

There were 309 Nova Scotia Health employees off work on Thursday because of COVID-19, either because they’d tested positive, were awaiting test results or because they’d been exposed to an infected household member, said a release from the agency.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 5, 2022.

The Canadian Press